“What a God! His road stretches straight and smooth. Every God-direction is road-tested. Everyone who runs toward him makes it. Is there any god like God?” Psalm 18:30-31

What a crazy day! First of all, we woke up to 40 degrees and a trailer house that felt like a walk in cooler. Once the coffee was brewing and the rugs were once again moved away so the furnace could blow the welcomed heated air, the day could start. All I really wanted to do was stay toasty warm under the covers in bed – which I did until the trailer house warmed up.

We thought we might be able to get started cutting right away this a.m. We headed out to the field with lunch buckets and water jugs in hand. Jim crawled into the combine only to be told by the farmer it was too wet. The moisture tester still showed 14.5%. Farmer says, “let’s try it again about noon”. So we headed back to the trailer house to eat our lunch – which consisted of sandwich (lunchmeat & cheese), chips, cookies, grapes, granola bar, pudding, iced tea (with lemon), and pop (Jim likes 2 cans of pop). I don’t usually eat all my lunch in one sitting. I try to spread it out throughout the day. I’m not sure what Jim does 🙂 The iced tea in a jar idea came from my Grandma. She used to do that for the hired guys. It’s best to recycle an instant tea jar for your icy cold iced tea. Sit that jar in the lunch box, surrounded by lots of ice and you have a cold drink with your sandwich or cookies.

Ok, so we ate the lunch and tried mailing a certified letter but the post office was closed. So, back out to the field we went. Tried it again – still too wet. Back to town to mail the letter, check out the hardware store and back to the trailer house. About 3:30, we headed out there again. This time it looked like we’d be able to get started and keep going – which we did.

Jim’s captain of the combine and cutting with the farmer. The farmer’s wife and I are hauling the grain to the bin. Not a far drive, just outside the field about a mile. I tried getting a picture of the grain going from the truck to the auger to the grain bin but my camera started dealing me fits. I hope it doesn’t completely die on me! If it does, I’ll be without a good camera until I can either get to a large enough city to buy another one or order one online and wait for it to show up at the post office. Not easy when you’re like 1,000 miles from a city. Just teasin – Lewistown is only 40 miles away. Not sure how far Great Falls is. It’s not like being in Jordan and actually being 85 miles from the nearest Walmart.

We cut til it got cool and the air felt damp. When it gets cool and damp, the combine quits feeding the wheat in nicely and it sometimes wants to growl a little as it goes through the machine. It’s a whole lot easier to cut wheat during the heat of the day and 100 degree day work the best. When the weather is good for people, it’s usually not good for cutting wheat. The temperatures lately certainly feels good to us humans but not so nice to get the acres of wheat cut.

Tomorrow is Taylor and Callie’s first day back to school. I talked to them earlier this evening and they were excited to get back and see their friends. Not so sure how the idea of school work fits into the picture, though. I tried to reassure them that once they were back, everything would fall into place for them. They were telling me how it didn’t even feel like they’d actually left Manley and had been gone for 10 weeks. I understand that feeling. It’s hard to say goodbye to the summer schedule – or lack of – and the wheat fields for another year. I’m sort of denying that it’s going to happen but I’m only kidding myself. Anyways, the two of them are having a grand time hanging out with their older siblings and doing some fun things. I’m glad they’re able to be together for the next several weeks. Jamie will be going back to her job, too. She’s a para for her local school and LOVES it. She’s probably the one most excited about school starting.

This guy was on the wrong side of the fence but I sure wasn’t going to be the one to tell him that!

Is that snow? That was the question I asked Jim and he said he didn’t think so. I think it is.

Jim dumping in the farmer’s truck

Headed into Denton

Let me start out by telling you it’s 11:00 p.m. (mountain time)and it’s 47 degrees already. I’m not sure how cold it got last night but I do know that we moved rugs and whatever else was on top of the furnace vents this morning. Why? To turn the furnace on! Can you believe it? Seems like only last week we were suffering from 100+ heat and now it’s 47. I think it really WAS last week.

I got started telling you a little bit about how Zeorian Harvesting got started and then, it seems, I got sidetracked. Me? Sidetracked? 🙂 For those of you who have daughters and hired men, consider the combination a “hazard of the trade”. I met Jim for the first time in 1975. He was a hired man for my grandparents. He was hired in 1976, too. My mom and his mom were friends before we knew each other. I didn’t meet him until the day my family went to his folks’ house to pick him up to go to Grand Island. We were headed to Grandpa and Grandma’s house and would be heading for Dacoma, OK within days. We officially started dating when I was a sophomore in high school and married in April, 1982.

Jim was an electrician when we got married. I don’t think he really liked being an electrician but he did his job and never complained.  He was a farmer at heart-with no farm. The fall of 1982, my dad and grandpa approached him with the idea of buying a combine and adding it to the fleet they already had. That would make 4 machines for Hancock’s Custom Combining. Since the farm was Jim’s first love, we decided to go for it. He spent his life’s savings on that first combine – a Massey Ferguson. He cut fall crops that year south of Omaha. He was able to stay with his sister and brother-in-law because we were living in an apartment in Omaha at the time. I continued to work my desk job during the week and then go visit Jim over the weekend at his sister’s house. It was always so hard for me to get up early on Monday morning and head for the apartment to get ready for my job. That winter,  Jim had a really tough time finding a winter job. He sold Christmas trees in a lot right across the street from our apt. We also cleaned a couple of dance studios in the evenings. I think that desk job of mine probably got us through that first winter.

The spring of 1983 rolled around and I had to watch everyone leave without me. I was able to convince my boss that I should take a month’s leave
in August and meet up with the harvesters. My boss was a good man and agreed to let me do that. I got on a bus in Omaha on the first of August and rode it for 23 hours to Miles City, MT. Jim met me there and we continued to the trailer house in Jordan. Going back home and to the desk was not an easy thing to do!

Jim went with my family in 1983, 1984, 1988 and 1989. Jamie was born December, 1985 and Jenna was born April, 1988. The girls and I held down the fort in ’88 and ’89. We were able to visit a couple of times but at that time, I was also babysitting and couldn’t leave as often as I would have liked. After 1989, my dad decided he was going to go back to work full-time. He had been working as civil service for the Air Force and was short only 5 years for retirement. Grandpa and Grandma were getting old enough they felt they should probably quit. Grandpa was nearly 80 years old and Grandma had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Jim went to work driving truck for a local trucking business. He was in Western Nebraska June, 1990, when he saw a combine loaded on a trailer headed for somewhere. He came home and told me he had been bitten by the harvest bug. Could we make it work with just one combine? It also happened to be a good time to trade our MF combine for a Case IH. It helped that we had a good friend that was a salesman for Case. The trade was made and we were going on the road as a family! We borrowed Grandma and Grandpa’s fifth wheel trailer house, pickup, and a grain truck. Jim’s dad agreed to go along as our hired man and we headed for Lodgepole, NE. It just so happened that the farmers Grandpa had cut for in previous years hadn’t found a cutter to take his place yet. So, we became Zeorian Harvesting &  Trucking. Jamie was four and Jenna was two. Enough history for tonight.

Denton is a beautiful small town with a population of about 300 people. It has everything you need – a grocery store, a hardware store, a bank, post office, library and fuel station. There’s more too – café, bar, swimming pool and grain elevators. We began our day by walking to the grocery store for bread. Jim wanted a couple of pieces of toast and we had no bread. Everyone in this town is exceptionally nice. It probably helped that we were parked on the outskirts of town for a couple of hours last night. It gave everyone enough notice that someone new was in town.

We had a bite to eat, threw a load of laundry in the washer and headed to the where the equipment was parked. Got things ready as though we’d
cut wheat today, checked out the fields and then headed back to town for lunch. A quick stop to the trailer for a new load of laundry to be thrown in and out the door we headed. We were hoping the wheat had dried down enough that we’d get to cut this afternoon but it just didn’t happen. We’ll hope tomorrow’s heat will get it to that magical number of 13% and we’ll be back to work again. I had fun snapping a few pictures of our new surroundings. Enjoy!

P.S. It is now midnight and it’s 43 degrees. Although I’d like to think winter isn’t coming, the temps are telling me differently!

The Pete parked along main street. One of four older style evelvators in the background

Headed to the field

Working on getting equipment field ready

Beautiful Montana scenery!

A landmark that I thought I would probably never see again from a wheat field – Square Butte. We cut near this butte last summer too. The combine belongs to the farmer we’re helping.

Railroad snow plows.

Main Street – Denton, MT

Our new home – notice the grass!

Square Butte in the distance. Jim’s taking the ladder off the combine because he’s worried about finding a mud hole and bending the ladder. The fields we’ll be cutting had been under water this spring.

This is how we get in and out of the combine cab with no ladder.